The following statistics of the foreign commerce (merchandise imports and exports) of the principal countries of the world are given in significant groupings which call for various explanations.

Figures are in million dollars ($1,000,000) and are mostly for the year 1908, (Stat.  Abst. 1908, p. 769).  At the present writing the war has altered all the lines of commerce.

  COUNTRIES HAVING EXCESS OF IMPORTS OF MERCHANDISE

|Excess %|Imports.|Exports.|
United  Kingdom ..|   57   |  2886  |  1835  |
Germany ..........|   20   |  1824  |  1523  |
Netherlands ......|   30   |  1130  |   873  |
France ......     |   12   |  1089  |   975  |
Belgium ..........|   33   |   642  |   484  |

Italy ............|   68   |   562  |   334  |
Aust.-Hung .......|    7   |   487  |   457  |
Switzerland ......|   44   |   287  |   200  |
Spain ............|   10   |   168  |   153  |
Sweden ...........|   26   |   163  |   129  |
Denmark ..........|   16   |   191  |   165  |
Norway ...........|   58   |   101  |    64  |

Canada ...........|   34   |   298  |   222  |
China ............|   43   |   254  |   178  |
Turkey ...........|   59   |   135  |    85  |

  COUNTRIES HAVING EXCESS OF EXPORTS OF MERCHANDISE

|Imports.|Exports.|Excess %|
United States ....|  1312  |  1638  |   25   |
Russia ...........|   436  |   542  |   24   |

British Colonies .|   558  |   615  |    5   |
British India ....|   418  |   486  |   16   |
Australasia ......|   242  |   302  |   25   |
Japan ............|   196  |   206  |    5   |
Cuba .............|    84  |   116  |   40   |
Mexico ...........|    78  |   115  |   42   |
San Domingo ......|     5  |    10  |  100   |

Argentina ........|   263  |   353  |   34   |
Brazil ...........|   172  |   214  |   24   |
Chile ............|    98  |   116  |   18   |
Uruguay ..........|    35  |    37  |    6   |
Bolivia ..........|    21  |    24  |   14   |
Venezuela ....    |    10  |    15  |   50   |

#Sec. 7.  Balance of merchandise movements.# The first group evidently consists of the older, creditor countries which are drawing some of the income of their investments from abroad each year in the form of food and of raw materials of many kinds.  The second group includes countries of very diverse conditions, possibly all having some investments abroad; Italy receives large imports in return for the services of many Italians working in foreign countries, and the three Scandinavian countries (especially Norway) carry on a large commerce for other nations which is paid for in these ways.  The excess of imports in the third group probably is the result of new investments that were being made in Canada by English and American capitalists, in Turkey especially by Germans, and in China by Americans and Europeans.